Whether for religious reasons, lack of opportunity or, simply, ego, in 1994 young Karen military officers split from the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), one of the largest ethnic armies in Burma / Myanmar and one which had been at war with the Burmese military for decades. 

Forming their own army – inaptly called the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) – the breakaway soldiers signed a ceasefire with the Burmese military in return for weapons and financial assistance. They also shared intelligence with the Burmese contributing to the fall of the KNLA stronghold in Mannerplaw in 1995.

The DKBA have long been associated with gambling, trafficking, methamphetamine production, and more recently, the establishment of online scam ‘farms’, with one of the original DKBA leaders – Saw Chit Htoo (pictured in this series inspecting troops) – identified as a warlord and sanctioned by both the United Kingdom and the United States for his activities. 

In 2010 the DKBA split, with the leader Bo Nat Khann Mway (General Moustache) seemingly adopting a more pro KNLA / Karen and less Burmese military stance. The DKBA remaining loyal to the Burmese Military rebranded as the Karen Border Guard Force. 

Today, part of the original DKBA now fights against the Burmese military as part of a combined force of five armed groups. These groups have also clashed with Saw Chit Htoo’s Karen BGF.

In travelling to DKBA territory, the sadness is that whilst leadership pursues it’s own greed and criminal activity, ‘on the ground soldiers’ are predominantly from towns and mountain villages and identify first and foremost as ‘Karen’, just as do the soldiers from the other Karen armies.